[BITList] How Jesuits Took Calculus from India to Europe

[HUGH]

John,

I find it hard to say if I agree or disagree with Dr Raju's contention.  That the sine function originated in India is stated in Boyer's A History of Mathematics.  But Boyer says, and Raju's text follows the same line, that the Indian use of it was in navigation and astronomy.  I see nothing about Newton or Leibniz being concerned with navigation problems, and their work on infinite series (like those from which the trig functions, among many others, were calculated) paralleled work being done all over the place.  Newton's calculus had to do with motion and area - Leibniz supplied the mathematical symbols. But for their philosphical reservations about infinitesimals, the Greeks might have "invented" calculus.  Raju may well be correct, and probably is, as far as it goes, but I daresay one could make a similar case for a number of places being the source of a number of mathematical concepts.  Cross-fertilisation has always been a feature of the subject.

Hugh.
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